17yo Australian in Court Charged with 19 Hacking Offences

Today the australian federal police have announced that a 17yo unidentified juvenile has been charged in parramatta children's court for hacking offences. In the press release by the AFP they have stated that this juvenile is possibly an active member of anonymous and from what i can tell of the charges they are facing it appears they might be getting charged for some defacements and illegal access to computers systems. The Cybercrime Operations Manager for AFP, Commander Glen McEwen, has stated that they are taking incidents like this very serious and continues to state that "Protesting through computer intrusions and website defacements is not an appropriate method to raise public awareness about any issue". Charges: - Six counts of unauthorised modification of data to cause impairment, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment;

One count of unauthorised access with intent to commit a serious offence, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment;

One count of possession of data with intent to commit a computer offence, which carries a maximum penalty of 3 years imprisonment; and

Twelve counts of unauthorised access to restricted data, which carries a maximum penalty of 2 years imprisonment.

The statement does not include much information in the way of who this person is online or offline or even any proof that this youth is infact an anonymous hacktivist. The statement does go on to say that they are taking any cyber security and cybercrime issues on and that anyone using illegal methods for online protesting will be pursued. The youth has been scheduled to be in front of court on the 17th of may and the AFP has stated they can not further comment of this as it is still in the process of courts. Source: AFP press releases